


Simple Truths in a Finnish Sauna

by islasands



Series: Lambski [50]
Category: Adam Lambert (Musician)
Genre: Family, Finland, M/M, Sauna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-28
Updated: 2011-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:31:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/islasands/pseuds/islasands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam and Sauli are staying with Sauli's parents in Finland. Adam is introduced to the joys and tribulations of the Finnish sauna...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple Truths in a Finnish Sauna

Preparations were being made for a shopping expedition. The entire family was upstairs. Adam listened to Sauli and his mother and sisters who were in the hallway and halfway up the stairs, either quarrelling or cracking jokes. Adam couldn’t be sure.

They spent a great deal of time loudly joshing one another, physically and vocally, occasionally turning to Adam for support. Sauli would translate for his sisters, adding his own comments in English. “She thinks I am spoiled and selfish and wants you to agree with her. Tell her, no. Tell her I am always very good.” But instead Adam grinned at his sister and nodded ‘yes’, knowingly. “Agggh, it is not true!” Sauli pushed Adam away from him. His sister laughed. “He is the beautiful son,” she said, speaking in English. “And the sun, it shines out of his arse.”

Adam liked seeing Sauli in his own domain, liked seeing the similarities he shared with his kinsfolk, liked the feel, the energy of these Finnish people who met his eyes with such an oddly incurious candour. They didn’t seem to want to add him up. They didn’t quiz him about his life and he instinctively knew better than to quiz them about theirs. To visitors, and there had not been many, it seemed he was neither a novelty nor an exotic; he was just a dude, Sauli’s boyfriend, staying with Sauli’s people. Whatever their private thoughts about him, or about him and Sauli, it was neither here nor there in the over-all scheme of things. Life was for living. Not tomorrow, not later on, but now. “These people,” Adam thought, running on first impressions, “need no caution to seize the day. They possess it from the moment they wake, driving it before them like a horse. They crack their whips when there’s work to be done, or place bells around it’s neck to celebrate something, or stand around laughing immoderately when it falls in a ditch.”

But most of all he liked their attitude to gaps in conversation. They didn’t hasten to fill silences; rather, they seemed to ratify them as parts of speech. He was acutely aware, in fact, of his own culture’s need for verbal clutter, of how when there was nothing left to be said someone always went ahead and said it. Finnish conversation, contrariwise, had something oddly reminiscent of a landscape to it; you walked a distance then paused under trees, you walked some more and stopped to look at a stream, you walked and then with unconcealed interest examined the contents of your lunch box. Yet for all their pragmatism he felt that another world lay beneath their uncomplicated surfaces, a world as private as the world of bears, as wild as a blizzard, as strange and poetic as snow falling from a clear blue sky.

Sauli burst into the living room. “We’re off,” he announced, but just then his father called out from his office. Sauli answered him in Finnish. Sauli’s father, wrapped in only a towel, appeared in the doorway. After checking something with Sauli, he looked down at Adam and said, “You come with me.” It was a statement, not a question. Adam, careful not to glance at Sauli, replied in kind with a straightforward “Yes.” Sauli looked from his father to Adam and back again. His mother called to him. His sisters were shouting from outside the house. “Goodbye,” Sauli said to Adam, waving as though a significant voyage was about to separate them. He smiled at his father. He was gone.

Sauli’s father beckoned Adam to follow him. He led him out of the house to a covered walkway that led to the family sauna, a small building adjoining the house. He gave Adam a towel, led him inside, and pointed in the direction of the sauna’s adjoining shower. After hanging his towel on a hook, he himself entered the sauna.

While he showered Adam wondered what this occasion of intimacy might signify. Sauli’s father could not speak a word of English and he himself, to his chagrin, had learned little of Finnish beyond greetings and expressions of love. What then could they possibly say to one another? Or perhaps it wasn’t about what they said. Perhaps Sauli’s father wanted to strike up some sort of ‘man-to-man’ connection to make Adam feel at home? But then again – what if he was measuring him up as a prospective son-in-law? Well, that kind of scrutiny could be on the cards. The family seemed completely at home with their relationship. Sauli was clearly the apple of his mother’s eye. Perhaps she had asked Sauli’s father to give him the once over?

Adam hung up his towel and entered the sauna. He climbed up onto bench opposite Sauli’s father who was leaning back on the wall with his eyes closed. At first the heat was pleasant. It bathed him top to toe after the manner of sunlight. He began to sweat, and that too was initially pleasant. Then Sauli’s father said something, and reached over to slowly pour water on the heated stones. The steam rose, filling the air, and the heat gradually increased, the air becoming so thick with it that breathing became difficult. Adam slumped forward. He was in agony. This was not merely unpleasant it was self-inflicted torture. The heat felt as though it was drilling through every pore in his skin, entering his blood, and forcing its way into every organ.

Sauli’s father said something. Adam wanted to think about how ludicrous the situation was – not only to to be boiling alive but to be doing it in the company of a man whose speech he could not understand, but his brain couldn’t do it. The most it could do was mentally utter the word “stupid”. His brain felt as dense and heavy and useless as a stone. He slowly sat upright. He slowly leant back on the wall. And then the miracle happened. The humidity reduced. The heat became less intense. And his mind suddenly felt weightless. But it wasn’t an amorphous, feathery weightlessness. It was sharp and crisp, as though his mind was as black and clear as the night sky high above a bonfire on a beach.

Sauli’s father spoke to him again. And Adam, opening his eyes to acknowledge the words spoken, answered.

“I am deeply in love with your son,” he said. Sauli’s father nodded.

“But the truth is I can protect him from everyone but me. Sometimes love is like a well in a desert to me. I drink from it. I bathe in it. And then I stand and look into the distance.”

Sauli’s father said something. He suddenly smiled an encouraging smile.

“I only know that to me he is beautiful, in every way. I love him and if he will have me I will marry him. That is all.” Adam smiled. He heaved a big sigh of relief at hearing his own truth.

Sauli’s father stood up. He climbed down from the bench and patted Adam’s shoulder.

Later that night Adam told Sauli about the sauna. “Oh yes,” Sauli said, before Adam had a chance to describe what he thought had happened. “Dad thought you needed time to relax. To chill. Too many girls. Too much laughter. He said you looked a different man after the sauna. That is the magic of the Finnish sauna, my love. It heals everything.” He laughed and began unbuttoning Adam’s shirt.

Adam lay on his side and pulled Sauli against him. He would never, never get used to the feel of his naked body pressed against him. 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize to any Finnish readers if the Finnish aspects to my story do not ring true. Like Adam, I can only go by my impressions. But it is fiction, and I hope you will therefore overlook any discrepancies.
> 
> The next fic has Adam and Sauli alone - late on Christmas night in Finland. Expect heavy duty lultz and some blizzardly sex! lol


End file.
